Friday Notes 70 - September 13 2019

Yes it's the second week of school, and yes we're still doing back to school stuff as we get our kindergarten kid worked up to full-time classes. I mean she's ready, but lots of other kids aren't so it's gradual entry for everyone. For us it's mostly meant tears when she isn't staying at school when her older sister is getting dropped off.

Basically, I've taken most of the week off to pick up and then watch a kid and try to work between the next pickup because my wife is working on the other end of town at the same time. Of course this comes as I'm trying to finish off 3 cool content projects and a Restrict Content Pro site...we'll get there though.

Today I started trying Sorted, which takes an interesting stance on scheduling your tasks. Will take a week or two to have an opinion, but I’m at least interested after a day of use.

If you’ve found my content helpful I’ve opened up a Patreon page. You can help ensure that more helpful content keeps coming.

Wednesday I wrote about Invisible Women. The big takeaway is, the decisions we make with so much of the organization of society shows we don't value women. We don't value their input, or their needs. This needs to change.

Friday Five

Here's the thing though, my system works for what my life is now so I'm not going to change it. That said, if I was to take a job somewhere or have some other big change in how my life runs then it would be a time to look at my productivity setup and choose the best setup for the way my life runs currently.

I don't think that you should go chasing the new hotness. Almost every time, the problem is that you're not using the system well. You're not saying no to the things you should be saying no to. That your task list is actually a wish list of things you'd like to think you'll do, but you won't.

That's one of the big reasons I love notebooks. They default to no. If I don't move things forward, then it's not on my current list. Digital tools, keep pulling the cruft forward all the time so that you just have a big ever growing wish list that you can never get through.

Hrm, I bet you could build a Shortcut to eliminate any task in a project that doesn't have a specific tag. Maybe even file the whole project if it doesn't meet certain criteria in some catchall heading that meant it was dead.

Lewis Mumford famously said "Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity."

I did want a house with a yard, but the more I live close to downtown and walk to the places I want to go, why would I deal with the extra work a yard takes? Than would only mean I have to spend time caring for a yard instead of being out doing stuff with my family.

We're happily a 1 car family and the bike lanes in town are pretty good. We do have one route across town that only has 3 blocks directly in major traffic. This I use to take my kids to the river by bike, with my oldest riding and my younger two sitting in the bike trailer.

The article goes on and has many great points about stopping the reliance on cars in L.A.

Imagine yourself sitting in your home. What’s right outside your front door, and what’s within a 10-minute walk of it? Can you make it to a grocery store or a café on foot, or do you have to drive? Is there a shared space nearby, a park or a patio, where you can mingle with the people who live around you? Do you often see people out and about, or do your neighbors mostly stay inside? What about the street: Is it filled with only cars, or do you see people biking and taking transit? Do you feel safe walking on the sidewalk that lines your front door (if there even is a sidewalk)? Are there places to sit along it?

Paper and pen allow you to focus, as there are no notifications in a notebook. When taking notes in a notebook, you are unlikely to be distracted with the latest tweet from your friend or the President.